Conventionally, magnetic tapes or flexible disks have been mainly employed for magnetic recording of a type in which a magnetic head is used as a transducer so as to be brought into sliding contact with a medium. However, in recent years, so-called mini disks have become popular for musical magnetooptical recording. In order to provide a transducer supporting apparatus in which magnetooptical overwriting can be easily performed through modulation of a magnetic field, the mini disks are arranged for use with a sliding contact type magnetic head and a sliding contact film for sliding contact with the magnetic head is formed on the medium.
One sliding contact type magnetic heads for magnetooptical recording, in which a medium is slid not continuously but only at the time of start and stop of the magnetic head is known from Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-132060 (1992). In this known magnetic head, one face of a slider confronting a disk acting as a magnetooptical recording medium is flat and is formed by resinous material having excellent wear resistance and lubricating properties such that wear and damage of the slider and the disk are prevented.
Meanwhile, one suspension applicable to the above mentioned known magnetic head is well known from Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 55-22296 (1980). This prior art suspension includes a gimbals having two degrees of freedom for causing the slider to follow tilt of the disk and a load beam for producing a load for depressing the slider against the disk.
However, these conventional magnetic heads have the following drawbacks. Namely, since the gimbals for causing the flat slider to follow the disk should have at least two rotational axes requiring accurate formation, inexpensive manufacturing techniques such as pressing cannot be employed for producing the gimbals, so that the gimbals becomes quite expensive, thereby resulting in increased production cost of the transducer supporting apparatus.
Meanwhile, the gimbals referred to above can be naturally rotated also in a pitching direction relative to a sliding direction of the disk. Therefore, if the disk is slid improperly, the slider is likely to be, so to speak, plunged into the disk, thus causing great damage to the disk.
Furthermore, due to minute pitching motions of the gimbals, stick slip phenomenon, i.e., vibrations caused by variations of frictional force happen readily, so that frictional force becomes unstable and thus, durability of the disk deteriorates, thereby resulting in reduced reliability of the transducer supporting apparatus.